Tuesday, July 18, 2006

The Power of Corporate Content: Home Depot Moves to Sell Ads on its Own Web Site

Any number of media companies would sell body parts or family members to become a top 1,000 Web site; for others such a benefit comes more naturally. Comfortably nestled in at number 848 in the current Alexa rankings - even in the middle of a hot do-nothing summer - Home Depot has created a powerful online niche for selling goods and promoting its chain of home improvement stores. But with such a powerful market position, why not leverage the value of those page visits through more than online and in-store sales? Home Depot has taken the plunge and announced that it will take on advertisers for their site.

Online ads will certainly benefit Home Depot's online and in-store sales as well, much in the same way that Wal-Mart's private label shopper's magazine gains ad dollars from their vendors to promote in-store sales. Ads on retail Web sites are somewhat more direct, though, in effect an extension of in-store merchandising programs, providing product promotions right in the "aisles" for shoppers. But more importantly it recognizes the power of the Home Depot site as destination content that provides a common ground for advertisers not found easily elsewhere. It's another example of corporations recognizing the media power of their own content and leveraging it to provide the most powerful communications possible that suit their goals (see our earlier analysis of Boeing's aggressive online site).

While this is relatively bad news for home improvement publications, many of these that are surviving in today's niche-oriented market have gone upscale in their focus and may still benefit if they can provide niche content through sites such as Home Depot's. In other instances, as noted in our earlier news analysis on rich data, B2B-oriented media companies have found ways to repurpose nuts-and-bolts industry content into consumer-friendly services via portals such as Home Depot's. As corporations build relationships online with their markets and take their slice of audience share these types of marketing relationships will only increase. When we say at Shore that today's leading publishers are the individuals and institutions equipped with affordable publishing tools and a deep understanding of their audience's needs, we could now use Home Depot's site as one of the thumbnail graphics, I suppose.

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ABOUT SHORE

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I focus my professional life at the intersection of content, technology and people, enabling organizations to find their most valuable positioning there. I speak often at conferences, have written the book "Content Nation" on social media (http://goo.gl/bKq6l) and am working on my second book, "The Second Web" (thesecondwebbook.com).

I sail, love to travel and to explore new places, natural wonders and cultures, do community volunteer work, read voraciouly and believe that every day is an opportunity to make the world a better place.

Biography:

John Blossom is a globally recognized media and enterprise content industry analyst, providing thought leadership to executives in search of new approaches to rapidly changing markets for publishing and technology products and services. Mr. Blossom founded Shore Communications Inc. in 1997, specializing in research and advisory services and strategic marketing consulting for publishers and content service providers in enterprise and media markets.

Mr. Blossom’s engagements have included strategic marketing consulting for major corporations and startups as well as speaking engagements at major conferences and advisory services for senior industry executives. Mr. Blossom is the author of the book "Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Our Lives and Our Future," published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in January 2009, and speaks frequently at industry and corporate events on publishing in enterprise and media markets.

Mr. Blossom's career spans more than twenty years of marketing, research, product management and development in advanced information and media venues, including the marketing and development of real-time and Web-oriented financial information services at global financial publishers and financial services companies (Citicorp, Quotron and for Reuters Holdings PLC), as well as earlier experience in broadcast media.

Mr. Blossom served as a Vice President and Lead Analyst at Outsell, Inc., where he provided research and analysis coverage of content technologies and financial and corporate information markets for major corporate clients, and developed successful online ecommerce services for research reports.

For his excellence in qualiitative research, Mr. Blossom was recognized with the Vendor of the Year award by Standard & Poor's in 2001. Mr. Blossom's ContentBlogger weblog won the Software and Information Industry Association 2007 CODiE award for Best Media Blog. Mr. Blossom has traveled to and is familiar with both European and Asian markets for content as well as North American markets..

Mr. Blossom has been interviewed frequently by the business press and has been quoted in many major news and trade publications and media outlets, including: